Behold the glory: Top 5 sporting years of Independent India

2000

Viswanathan Anand – bringing unprecedented glory to Indian chess

It was the year of the Olympics and also a year of many firsts for Indian sports. The new millennium brought smiles on the faces of Indians through successes in many sports.

Karnam Malleswari became the first Indian woman to win a medal in Olympics. She achieved this feat by bagging bronze in weight lifting in the 69 kg category.

While chess is a game in which India had been doing well since Viswanathan Anand became its first grand master in 1988, the new millennium brought the perfect jewel to Anand’s crown when he became the first Indian to win a world championship by defeating Alexei Shirov.

This was also a crucial year for Indian cricket; the team was just trying to overcome the horrors of match-fixing saga. It saw the appointment of Saurav Ganguly as the captain of the national cricket team (he went on to become one of the most successful Indian captains ever) and he led them in style taking his young team to the finals of the ICC Champions trophy in Nairobi.